Starfield: Exploration in its heart

In Starfield, exploration is key

Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios. In this next-gen RPG among the stars, you can create any character you want and explore with unprecedented freedom. With the power of the latest technology (and built on the brand new Creation Engine 2), Starfield takes you on a journey through space as you try to answer humanity's greatest mystery.

Bethesda has revealed a bit more of Starfield's developments through a more recent video in which game director Todd Howard, studio director Angela Browder, and art director Matt Carofano were chatting about the inspirations for the upcoming space RPG.

Starfield has more than double the dialogue of Skyrim

During the Tokyo Game Show, Howard told the audience that Starfield will launch with full Japanese localization and that it has more than 150,000 lines of dialogue.

As Nibellion noted on Twitter, that's more than twice as many lines as Skyrim, which has 60,000. It's also more than Fallout 4's 111,000 lines of dialogue. So get ready for a lot of conversation between gameplay.

The number of words and lines is sometimes seen as a measure of depth and complexity in "serious" RPGs. The same year that Bethesda boasted of Skyrim's 60,000 lines, BioWare showed off Mass Effect 3's dialogues with a total of 40,000 lines, double that of the first game. A little more recently, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had a script of 450,000 words.

Starfield is "like Skyrim in space", says Todd Howard

We don't know much about Starfield's story yet. In Washington Post, Todd Howard made the comparison to Skyrim, “but in space”. He also mentioned that you will have to deal with different factions. One of those factions is called "Constellation".

"It's NASA meets Indiana Jones meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. A group of people who are still looking for answers."

There are a lot of factions in the game, but Constellation is the main one you're going to be a part of. It's a little bit like Skyrim in terms of the game’s structure; free to go wherever you want to, factions that you can join, and creating your own path.

Like Skyrim and Bethesda's Fallout games, Starfield will be playable in both first- and third-person view.

Howard goes into great depth when it comes to creating believable situations in-game. Howard has visited Elon Musk's company SpaceX for Starfield research and inspiration. It is not clear how this inspiration will manifest exactly in the game, but Howard did mention that Helium 3 - a theoretical fuel for nuclear fusion - could be used to fuel Starfield's ships.

The design of the ship in the trailer shows futuristic, but recognizable, technology. Lots of buttons and switches like the cockpits we have today, as opposed to the super-exotic technology we see in games like Mass Effect.

Play Starfield on day 1 of release with Game Pass Ultimate!

Starfield will be released on November 11, 2022, and you can play this game right after release if you have a Game Pass (Ultimate) subscription. So get a 12-month Game Pass Ultimate, and you'll be all set!